This application relates generally to an article handing system in which a series of articles such as books or signatures are fed in succession to form a stream. The principles of the invention are particularly applicable to form a system which performs such functions as (1) alternately feeding a stream of signatures into two streams, (2) combining two streams of signatures into a single stream, and (3) selectively rejecting either single signatures or a stream of signatures on command.
During mass production of articles such as books or signatures the handling of such articles is conventionally done at high speeds. In one typical book handling operation a stream of books being fed by a main conveyor are alternately diverted into a pair of stream of books. In another typical type of operation two streams of books are combined into a single stream and fed along the main conveyor. In yet another typical operation, a book, or a stream of books, are selectively diverted, on command, out of the stream of books being fed by the main conveyor.
In high speed book handling operations, and particularly those operations which selectively divert books, on command, out of a single stream of books it has heretofore been conventional to provide a switching or divert device which operates within the space between the trailing edge of one book and the leading edge of the following book. As handling speeds increase, this places extremely high demands on the speed at which the divert mechanism must be capable of diverting one book without interferring with the feeding of the next succeeding book.
In systems for handling articles other than books, other types of apparatus has been suggested for performing such functions as diverting a stream of articles into plural streams. For example, in the system of U.S. Pat. No. 3,635,322, it has been suggested to handle a stream of non-circular articles by alternately gripping every third article by grippers associated with one of a pair of conveyors and then stripping the articles from the grippers with the articles being diverted into three separate streams. This system while presumably satisfactory for its intended use, is not believed to have the versatility (in terms of the number of different operations it can perform) for high speed handling of articles such as books, as the present invention.